e-mail: sahinbasak@hotmail.com
	Office hours:
	Phone:    969-0169

Please feel free to contact the instructor outside of class any time there is something you want to discuss, or if there is anything you don't understand. If you will miss class, tell me AHEAD OF TIME.

Course description

We will investigate the phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics of Turkish. You will learn how to acquire information about the structure of a language that is foreign to you, by collecting oral data from a native speaker. You'll figure out what kinds of patterns children learning the language as a native speaker must extract from the speech they hear. This is a course which, more than most, requires your active participation. You create the course by finding questions that you would like to explore, carrying out the investigation, and sharing your results with your classmates. Each student will lead at least three class sessions. The final project for this course, which will be completed by the whole class together, will be to put together a grammar of Turkish, which we will "publish" at the end of the term. Each student is responsible for writing up the points investigated during the classes that they lead. I am here to assist you by providing guidelines, background information, suggestions, and feedback. You should also do that for each other.

Course expectations

Day to day

In preparation for each aspect of your investigation, examine at least three grammars of other languages in order to determine what points will be relevant, interesting, and necessary to consider. An outline of the points to be investigated and your techniques (at least 3) of doing so must be approved by me before the day of your in-class elicitation session. Give each student a work-sheet showing what you plan to investigate the day of your session. A first draft of each write-up will be due one week after your elicitation session. Bring first drafts to me during office hours (during the week that they are due) and we'll go over them. Second drafts will be presented to the class on the day that they are due, one week after the first draft. Absolute final versions of all sections will be accepted until the last day of class. There will also sometimes be weekly assignments to help you familiarize yourselves with the topics under investigation.

Cultural component

We'll be discussing the interaction of language and culture. Several chapters of a wonderful new book about the interaction of endangered languages and endangered species, Vanishing Voices, will be distributed, read, and discussed throughout the semester. In addition, read at least one book (any type) about the region where the language is spoken (except a book about the language-- that's cheating!). Tere is some information about Turkey's culture in Blackboard.  For more, ask the language informant. Start locating it NOW, because it may take a while to find and read.  You may need to use Inter-library Loan, which takes time. At the end of the course, we will have a meal from that culture. Each of you will prepare a typical dish, so start thinking about what you'd like to make.

Exams

There will be a final exam on the structure of Turkish and field methodology. For the final exam, all students will be counting on the information presented by each student. If I get the sense that people are not keeping up with the material during the course, I'll give pop quizzes.

Required texts

1. BUY Introduction to Linguistic Field Methods, by Bert Vaux, Justine Cooper & Emily Tucker. It's available from the Durham Book Exchange and the UNH Bookstore.
2. Vanishing Voices, by D. Nettle & S. Romaine, is available at the Dimond Library Reserve Desk for 1-day loans. You may also buy this book at either the Durham Book Exchange or the UNH Bookstore. It's required reading but optional buying. If you plan to read it on reserve, remember that several of you will be trying to read it for the same day. 
3. In addition, a book called Describing Morphosyntax: A guide for field linguists, by Thomas Payne, is also at the reserve desk. You'll want to consult it in selecting your topics and preparing your elicitations.
4. Finally, a book of interesting essays called Linguistic Fieldwork, by Newman & Ratliff, is also on reserve.

Grading

Coarse Course schedule

Please note that this is just a rough outline of how we will go about our investigation. The unknown quality of the material makes it impossible to set a strict time-line in advance. Part of your first assignment is to help design the syllabus by figuring out what topics we need to cover in the course. You will each pick three topics to investigate on three different days. Some items listed in one line may be explored by more than one student. We will readjust and fill in the blank days as new topics come to our attention.

Abbreviations

	Readings are from Introduction to Linguistic Field Methods (Vaux, Cooper & Tucker) unless otherwise noted.
	N&R = Daniel Nettle and Suzanne Romaine. 2000. Vanishing voices: the extinction of the world's languages. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. (required reading-- but you are not required to purchase the book; it's on reserve at Dimond)

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This page was last updated by Naomi Nagy on October 18, 2007 .